Daniel's Secret
by WhatATragicComedy
Summary: Daniel had a secret. One that he had kept closely guarded from his friends. One that he himself did not think about very often. Until now.


Warning: Pure silliness and however hard to believe, based on a real life experience of mine.

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Daniel had a secret. One that he had kept closely guarded from his friends. One that he himself did not think about very often. Until now.

Pouring over some translations, Daniel barely noticed the blur in his line of vision. Looking closer, he saw a ginormous brown spider on the far side of his desk. Naturally, Daniel freaked out. Jumping back, he knocked over his chair, almost tripping over it in his haste to get away from the desk. He _hated_ spiders. Creepy crawly eight legged things that just wait to bite you when you aren't looking. One of Daniel's first foster siblings had had a tarantula. Brian. He tormented Daniel with that thing. One night it got loose and Daniel had refused to leave his standing position in the middle of his foster parent's bed until it was found.

Daniel needed a weapon. His eyes darted around the room, never letting the spider leave his sight for too long for fear that it would get away. And if that happened, well, he'd just have to move offices. His artifacts were all too fragile to be used as a spider weapon and the only other thing in reach was his journal. Daniel frowned worriedly. He didn't really want to use his journal to squash anything.

The spider moved. That decided him. Daniel grabbed the journal and lunged for the spider. What was it about Goliath sized spiders that made them move at warp speed? The spider whipped down the side of the desk and on the floor before Daniel could make his suddenly concrete filled shoes move. He smacked the floor with his journal only to miss the spider. Evidently his aim sucked when he was panicking. To his complete and utter horror, the spider was gone. Daniel couldn't see it anywhere.

He had two options. He could carefully move all his artifacts and books, hoping that the spider wouldn't have super mutant jumping abilities along with it's warp speed, and track it down to kill it. Or he could leave the spider be and go back to his translation being deliriously paranoid for the rest of the day.

After attempting the first option for a few minutes, Daniel chickened out and retreated to his desk. After thoroughly checking his chair and desk (both the top and underneath), Daniel sat down again, humming to himself and telling himself to think spiderless thoughts.

Jack interrupted Daniel's 'We're Off To See the Wizard' rendition by coming to ask if he wanted to get some cake. The man still hadn't seemed to realize that the SGC provided them with a basic thing called phones. Daniel told him that he might come in a little bit but he was busy. Fully expecting Jack to leave at that, Daniel looked up when a few minutes later he felt eyes on him.

Jack was staring at him curiously.

"What?"

Waving his hand towards Daniel's head, Jack asked, "Pick up some lice or something?"

A moment's panic of thinking Jack might mean the spider was in his hair passed through Daniel's brain before he realized he was scratching his head. Repeatedly. He stopped abruptly and frowned, trying to be casual about the whole thing. Daniel couldn't help feeling like spiders were crawling on him every few seconds.

"Did you want something else, Jack?"

Jack broke out of his staring at the oddity that was Daniel Jackson gaze, tapping the table lightly. "Nope. Cake was all. We'll save you a seat."

Daniel nodded, watching the older man walk out the door and right as he went back to his translations, he saw the blur again. The spider shot out from underneath his desk, headed to the far corner of Daniel's office. Quickly grabbing his journal again he managed to corral it directly to the corner.

And then his courage failed him. Irrationally, or given the previous example maybe not so irrationally, Daniel feared he would try to squash the spider and it would use its warp speed capabilities to climb on the journal and up his arm before he could stop it.

In his anxiety, Daniel did what he normally did. He talked. To the spider. Informing it that they would not be in this mutual terror situation if it had just stayed out of his office. Occasionally during this impromptu inter-species conversation, Daniel would have to smack the ground with his journal to keep the spider in it's corner.

Finally, after negotiations had come to a dramatic halt, Daniel knew it was now or never. And had honestly never felt more ridiculous in his entire life. He went through the gate on a weekly basis, facing false gods and enemy Jaffa without so much as a blink and here this tiny spider had him on his knees.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, Daniel brought the journal up and then smacked it down on the ground. And that was it. The spider was smushed. But just to make sure Daniel pressed down on the journal several times. It paid to be thorough.

Cleaning up his journal, Daniel decided he should take up Jack on his offer and reward himself with cake.

Daniel closed up his office, absently scratching his head.


End file.
